Liberty Mutual Reviews in Boston, MA Area

Pros

Decent salary but there's a reason for the good salary. They get you to work there bc of the salary then treat you like garbage, which is why so many people leave after 1 year.

Cons

Company is driven by greedy upper executives who are only concerned with the next merger so they can potentially make more money and leave the employees to scramble and pick up all the pieces. they are going to over expose themselves and tank like all the other ones eventually if they don't stop and take care of their employees before thinking about more mergers. i say, if it's not broken, why fix it?

Advice to Senior Management

treat your employees with a little more respect.

Pros

-The work I do is enjoyable. I am in the career I want to be in and have much freedom to get that work done. No micro-managing.
-There is a new CIO since the beginning of 2009 who seems to know what needs to get done to be successful.

Cons

1. They seem to lay off employees who have been loyal for a long time (10 yrs plus)
2. The last 3 years there has been considerable change. The prior CIO and SLT created a mess of the IT Hosting team.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Review all your senior leaders and managers to verify they have had hands on experience in the IT world.
2. Managers should be more involved in the team and instead of constantly providing data to SLT to prove the teams worth.

Pros

stable company, work-life balance, good brand

Cons

poor promotional opportunity; old-school HR policies, managers with zero responsibility to direct reports- it is all about the boss, do not question, do not challenge.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers with direct reports should be required to have 360 reviews by staff and colleagues.

Pros

Ethical company, Mature Fortune 100 company, Liberty Mutual has a large amount of opportunity.

Cons

Bloated middle management with little real world experience, who have been here forever and only know how to do things one way. Some are also known to micromanage so much that good tallent leaves the company.

Large amount of red tape and politics, sometimes things move at a snails pace. Lots of ego-centric personailties who distract workers from larger tasks more important tasks, instead having to focus on wasteful tasks that have little value.

Benefits are very expensive and don't seem to be competitive with other companies.

Advice to Senior Management

You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Trust your employees to make the right decisions and allow them to do the work you've tasked them to do.

Pros

Short commute, Better than average pay for the area. Pension.

Cons

Typical large corp. issues: Poor management, constant change, lack of meaningful communication.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop jumping on the latest 'hot' management technique/theory (ex. Lean Six Sigma) and focus on how to enable employees to get the job done.

Pros

1. Quick advancement through the company for those that show the capability and willingness to do the job and exceed at doing their job. Perfect for overachievers and those that enjoy working many hours
2. Generally one has the physical resources to perform their job.
3. Good and fair performance review format
4. Level headed CEO
5. A conservative business approach that helps secure job stability (provided your position is still needed)
6. Challenging work
7. Expect most managers and people to listen to your ideas with an open mind
8. Company has a good reputation and great customer focus (though resources are lacking to live up to that focus in practice.)
9. Company has a steady focus on compliance and ethics
10. Company supports career development through training and college tuition reimbursement

Cons

1. Poor work life balance coupled with high stress environment. Consider yourself tethered to the company and expect no compensation for extra hours (whether that be time off or salary increase) if you are on salary. We have a yearly employee opinion survey and consistently rank low in this category and I am confident that this is one area Liberty Mutual will not seek improvement on.
2. Cut throat business dealings and "us against them" mentality within pockets of the company. Be prepared for finger pointing as opposed to people asking the question "what can I do to help the team and company improve"
3. Unless you are motivated by money, power, or just love business work, in my experience the work you will do will be challenging but not fulfilling
4. Expect to not be given the volume of human resources (if a manager), budget, or time (if individual contributor) necessary to perform the job at a level that you feel proud of or that you feel serves the customer as you would like to
5. This is not a service oriented culture by any means (excluding external customer service of course) and there are many competing priorities (points back to lack of human and budget resources). Be prepared to have to constantly follow-up with people on a daily or hourly basis in order to get help, an answer, or action from somebody to hold up their end of the bargain.
6. Though they have the means for providing recognition and awards, this is seldom done.
7. They will cut the cord with you in a heart beat.

Advice to Senior Management

You will continue to lose diverse and intelligent employees due to burn-out and continue to keep those motivated by power or selfish needs or those who just don't have any other options. I know why you would want to keep me, Liberty Mutual... but why would I want to stay with you

Pros

Supportive managers, advancement opportunities, flexible career paths and competitive compensation make this a great place to work. The structure of the company allows Liberty to make decisions for the long term as opposed to reacting to the stock price. I’ve had a chance to meet the CEO (Ted Kelly) at a training session back in 2008; my impression is that he cares about the company and its people.

If you are a clock puncher this is not the company for you however, if you are engaged, intelligent, ambitious and a hard worker, then this is the place for you.

Cons

The employee health insurance benefits. Work/Life balance can be taxing at times however, show me a Systems Organization where it’s not. It’s the nature of the beast.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue making decisions for the long haul. The communication and transparency has improved however, we need to keep it going.

It’s unacceptable that the results from the EOS (Employee Opinion Survey) take 6+ months to compile and share. This sends a mixed message to troops.

Pros

competitive salary, challenges,fast paced,nice co workers, cutting edge technology, opportunities to interact with diverse groups of people and see many parts of the country. Never bored, decent 401 k plan. good vacation benefits. systems in place to accurately account for completed work and numerous opportunities for training and education

Cons

poor benefits, particularly health and retirement benefits. top down style management. dictatorial, heavy handed, strong culture of age discrimination, devaluation of soft skills.value older workers, improve benefit package, less work, salaried workers need to complete 45-50 hs a week to complete their tasks. work life balance is in reality merely cheap talk.

Advice to Senior Management

Nurture, encourage, value your work force

Pros

Large Company... Much learning. Implemented development process was in early stages of development.

Cons

People are treated as commodities, nothing more. The development route for people is unfair. A 100% performance rating one year would be considered only 90% performance the next. People can not continue to improve year after year, once they reach 100% of their performance... It puts personnel on a track to eventual failure and promotes a high turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop re-inventing the wheel.. Find a solid way to run the business and allow your people to improve on it. Stop changing departements around every 18 months because they don't fit the profile you imagine they should.. It is a waste of money. Your employees spend so much time attempting to re-rig the business to run differently, that they never have the time to improve efficiency of what you already have.

Pros

Large company with multiple opportunities in various business units. It's the big player in terms of employment where I live. If you make it through the rounds of layoffs, you can work there for many years. xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xx x x x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Cons

In certain businsess units, my experience was that Management has little to no ideahow to plan anything; there was constant churn in everything direction; from the smallest details to the largest projects. Also, Management is very good at saying one thing, then doing another. This bred a serious case of distrust and bad morale. The work-life balance they advertise was nearly non-existent in my experience there. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Advice to Senior Management

Oh, what I could say here... Let's leave it to "learn how to manage."